Penetration Testing is a formalized simulated attack performed on a computer system to evaluate its security. The testing team uses the same tools, techniques, and processes as the attacker in order to discover and demonstrate the business impact of weaknesses in a system.
Penetration testing is usually conducted to simulate attacks that could threaten a company’s business. Testers conducting these penetration tests can check whether a system is robust enough to withstand attacks from authenticated and unauthenticated positions, as well as various system roles. Penetration testing, with the right scope, can dive into any aspect of a system.
Benefits of Penetration Testing
Companies that use penetration testing can:
- Finding weaknesses in the system
- Determining whether control systems are robust or lacking
- Support compliance with data privacy and security regulations
- Providing qualitative and quantitative examples of this security posture
- Provides budget prioritization input for system security management
Why Penetration Testing is important for companies
Any company doesn’t want its computer network to be breached by criminals. Especially, large companies that store sensitive data, such as banks. An irresponsible person could infiltrate the company’s network to take control of the network and cost the company a large amount of money.
As a preventive measure, these companies invest funds to strengthen their network systems. Well, the most effective method to find out whether the network system is strong enough or not is to conduct penetration testing.
Penetration tests can identify security holes and fix them as soon as possible. The person in charge of conducting the pen test will simulate the attacks that can be carried out. After that, explain the risks that can occur to the company’s security system. Then, fix the system without damaging the company’s network infrastructure.
Penetration testing method
Metode pen test Black Box Testing
The security system tester who performs the Black Box method has no information at all about the system to be tested. They don’t know the infrastructure or the source code. So, they pretend to be hackers who have to exploit the system. This tester will dig up information from scratch, analyze it, and then determine the type of attack that will be carried out to exploit hackable security holes.
Metode pen test Grey Box Testing
Instead of positioning themselves as hackers, Grey Box testers position themselves as users. Therefore, the tester is given access and information only as a user. The purpose of this method is to allow testers to provide more efficient security assessments than testing using the Black Box method. This method also allows testers to focus more on exploiting vulnerabilities that pose a greater risk.
Metode pen test White Box Testing
Testers with this method have full access to all information. The goal is for the tester to scrutinize, sort through the data, and allocate gaps at points that are considered potentially hackable. For this reason, the White Box method will take longer than the Black Box and Gray Box methods. Of course, the advantage compared to the other two methods is that the pentest assessment will be the most comprehensive. Testers can provide an assessment of the external and internal vulnerabilities of a site or network system. Of the three types of methods, White Box Testing is considered the best method for penetration testing.
